Lukashenko, Putin agreed to settle all problematic issues by 25th anniversary of Union State Treaty
By the 25th anniversary of the Treaty on the Creation of the Union State, all problematic issues of integration should be settled: both in the scope of activities of the two countries’ security councils and on government issues – as stated by President of Belarus Aleksandr Lukashenko during a meeting on international issues
Starting the conversation, the Head of State noted, “The international agenda remains extremely tense. The schedule of international meetings, as we have seen since the last month, is quite busy. All this requires the utmost concentration on past and future events.”
The President outlined the essence of his requirements, “Speaking briefly, why I convened this meeting, I must frankly say that sometimes we make very correct decisions when visiting certain states. We draw prospects and plans. However, then it turns out that we either don’t want to, or – as usually happens – we are too lazy to do what we’ve agreed on. Thus, it appears to be some semi-tourist trips.”
Aleksandr Lukashenko has clearly divided the areas of responsibility, “Let’s agree that the role of the President, figuratively speaking, is to open a window in some direction, creating a basis, a foundation for future agreements between members of the Government and the Prime Minister. And already the Government – primarily led by the Foreign Ministry and under the control of the President Administration – must implement certain agreements. Not to mention the agreements of the members of the Government reached during your trips.”
“There should be no tourist trips. No tourism! There must be a result. We need to synchronise our watches today and think over our further steps for the near future to implement the agreements that have been reached, as I said, as a result of certain visits to individual countries,” the Head of State summed up.
The President focused on some of the results of his visit to Russia. According to him, mutual understanding has been achieved on all issues that the governments could not solve. This concerns the new formula for oil price, prepayment for oil supplies, and settlement of refunds from the recycling fee for cars. And this is despite the fact that all strategic and tactical issues have been settled earlier at the level of the presidents.
“We’ve discussed all these issues with President Putin. Moreover, we’ve agreed that today or tomorrow – depending on how you prepare it – I will send him a letter outlining the essence of these three issues. Speaking about the prepayment, Rosneft mainly supplies oil to us, so he even protested, saying that ‘we have worked all our lives without prepayment, and we will be able to continue working in this way’. As far as the other two questions are concerned (I told him that we would not overtake the most important issues with these), I will send a letter so that decisions can be made,” Aleksandr Lukashenko stressed.
During the meetings of the leaders of Belarus and Russia, security issues have been also tackled.
“These are the central issues at any meeting and talks. They were closed in nature, and I don’t see any point in involving the Government. All law enforcement agencies and ministers, the foreign ministries are involved in certain issues. That’s the essence of these negotiations,” the Head of State noted.
“Mutual understanding has been found on all issues. There is no rejection. You just need to work out some kind of tactics, not dealing with tourism, but referring to some assertive negotiation tactic with Russian Prime Minister Mishustin,” the President stressed once again.
Aleksandr Lukashenko said that in autumn, on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the Union State Treaty, important events will be held in Minsk: both the Union State Council of Ministers and the Union State Supreme State Council.
“We’ve agreed with the President [of Russia] that by this time all problematic issues should be settled: both within the scope of activities of the two countries’ security councils (on security guarantees in writing form) and on Government topics. All issues should be solved before the beginning of the fourth quarter,” the Belarusian leader noted.
At the same time, the Head of State drew the attention of PM Roman Golovchenko to the fact that in addition to the current agenda (dealing with recycling fee, localisation of passenger cars, and oil refining), it is necessary not to forget about the strategic objectives of new industries and competencies for the Belarusian economy, which include aircraft engineering, microelectronics, and machine tool building.
“The corresponding situation has developed, and the Russians are open to us in this regard, and we can discover completely new competencies that are very important for our country, alongside space, nuclear energy, etc. We have the necessary groundwork in this direction in aircraft engineering, microelectronics, and especially in machine tool building,” the Belarusian leader added.
According to Aleksandr Lukashenko, he felt the urgency of the topic of machine tool building during a visit to an aircraft factory in Irkutsk, talking directly with the directors of enterprises. Interest in the Belarusian machine-tool equipment is very high.
The President added, “However, our machine tools are no longer a top priority. We need to move forward now. Moreover, the Russians allocate money for this, but it is necessary to approach it wisely.”
“You remember my agreement with President Putin during his last visit to Minsk: Belarus should be an independent, self-sufficient country (these are his words) with a stable economic basis. Both Deputy Prime Minister Parkhomchik and the new Minister [of Industry] and the new Ambassador to Russia will definitely report separately on these areas,” the Head of State continued.
Aleksandr Lukashenko focused on what the two countries’ leadership will come to people with for the jubilee date, “What does the Union State give to ordinary Belarusians and Russians? Once again, it is necessary to bring to Mezentsev [State Secretary of the Union State Dmitry Mezentsev] that the media, popularisation, and conversations are good. However, the Standing Commission needs to be immersed in the everyday problems. Therefore, it has been instructed to comprehensively analyse all aspects of ensuring equal rights of citizens. A lot has been done, but there are still enough problems, and for some reason we keep them quiet. Why should we worry too much? Members of the Government, the PM, the President fly on airplanes, and no one stops them at the airport or at the border for inspection, etc. But it is there. Airport inspections, roaming that has not been cancelled so far, the inability to buy train tickets on holidays (there are not enough trains)… Whose questions are these? The question of the work of our joint media holding: everyone comes and tells me how difficult it is and that someone doesn’t want something in Russia.”
